RICHARD TAYLOR:

1. Mr Cummins did not subscribe to the concept that the occasional 'good-thrashing' kept the blood circulating in the brain, which made for enhanced performance! Homework errors or such were treated with "Not in my class boy; out here; now what don't we do?; we don't translate 'the is's, the am's, the are's, the do's and the 'duzze's' (sic)". All the time, while chanting this mantra, he was beating one's buttocks with a bunch of five or six one-foot rules, held in a 'fan' pattern. On more than one occasion I was the recipient of this attention. Painful ? No. Hilarious - most certainly. A wonderful way of getting his point across, and certainly effective. The fact that it has stuck in my mind for almost 60 years says it all. I remember him to this day, teachers of his calibre come around rarely, and when they do they are worth remembering.
2. Who remembers a lad who turned up, at the start of second-year, resplendent in two-inch stripes of gold and royal-blue. Pocket badge proudly proclaiming ‘Simonstown High School? Looked like a kingfisher in a huddle of sparrows!! Brian R.J. Simpson was the boy in question. Brian ‘marched’ with me through Highland Road school, and then through our time at SGS. Fortuitously I ‘found’ Brian through the reader’s letters page of the Portsmouth News. After almost 60 years we now chat on Skype most weeks. I managed to hide 13,000 miles away, Brian only got as far as Gosport. I am sure that a brief mention will find others that remember Brian, and his ‘coat-of-many-colours’. (January 2015).